Chapter 684

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Chapter 684

Elder brother Li and the sister-in-law huddled together in bed, trembling in fear . The entire house shook with them as dust constantly sprinkled down .

Countless terrifying voices beyond the understanding of regular people passed through the walls, filling the entire room, even draining their courage to take a look at what was happening .

The yellow ox constantly mooed in the cowshed next door, filled with fear and despair .

A child around eight or nine years old wormed out of his blankets and rushed towards the door .

"Pebble! What are you doing?" The sister-in-law suddenly discovered that the child beside her had vanished, which made her pale in fright .

"Old Yellow is still outside! I'll lead him in!"

Pebble turned around and answered, having rushed out of the door already . He dared not look around, barging straight into the cowshed . A yellow ox was shaking its head and tugging at the rope restlessly, dripping with blood .

"Don't be afraid, Old Yellow . Let's go back into the house!"

Pebble undid the rope and leapt onto the ox's back, hugging the yellow ox's head . Only then did the ox calm down slightly . As soon as it set foot out of the cowshed, there was a great rumble, and a few zombies smashed down the courtyard wall, rushing in .

Under the moonlight, their ferocious figures immediately left Pebble dumbstruck . The yellow ox immediately turned around and fled towards the other side of the village . Pebble leaned on the back of the ox as the wind whistled past his ears . Returning to his senses after quite some difficulty, he looked back and called out, "Dad, mum!"

However, the last thing he saw was his house collapsing . Bricks and rubble flew everywhere, kicking up a cloud of dust . Before he could even worry or feel sorrow, a few zombies charged out of the dust, tailing right behind them . Their movements were stiff, but who knew how many times faster than the yellow ox they were .

The zombie at the very front suddenly lunged over . His ten long and curved nails almost reached Pebble's bottom, reducing the back half of the yellow ox to a mess .

Moo!

The yellow ox let out a miserable cry and collapsed on the ground . Pebble was thrown off its back and hurtled towards a wall . He was about to have his head smashed apart . He shut his eyes firmly, but he felt his body lighten . A gentle and powerful wind wrapped around him . When he opened his eyes, he saw an unfamiliar man holding him in one arm while carrying a glowing hoe in the other .

It seemed like a regular hoe for farmwork, but it plowed through the heads of the zombies with ease . Then it swung around with a silver arc and repelled over a dozen zombies that lunged over .

Li Long did not become entangled with them in battle, rushing into the sky soon afterwards . Who knew whether Pebble was naturally brave or frightened out of his wits, but he widened his eyes as he gazed at the ground in the distance . He saw countless terrifying zombies; his house had completely collapsed, reduced to ruins . He was unable to find it no matter how he looked .

Beneath them, trees grew furiously . Because these plants were extremely close together, they bunched up into a wall . Their roots below coiled together firmly .

After the Iron Blood Thistles and Sweet Potato Mines whittled them down, the zombie army had sustained extremely heavy losses, with less than a thousand remaining . However, most of their casualties were weaker walking corpses . They had lost far fewer refined zombies, and they had not even lost a single Iron Plate corpse .

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The flood of corpses smashed into the wall of trees fiercely, sending splinters flying and making the trees shake .

Li Long frowned firmly . These trees were not offensive plants used for battle . Although he still possessed a few more seeds of offensive plants, it was a much smaller number, nowhere near enough to stop the flood of corpses . He gripped a handful of seeds firmly . His palms were full of sweat, but he did not toss them out in a hurry . Instead, he continued to plant trees that could form walls .

Under the frenzied collision from the corpses, splinters flew everywhere and sap spattered about . However, while the zombies were strangely powerful, they were unable to smash through a sturdy wall composed of several hundred trees immediately .

Surrounded by hordes of zombies, Xiong Baitan arrived before the wall of trees . His eyes shone with a vicious light . He never thought the enemy could actually obstruct him so much, using these strange plants to rapidly deplete the zombies under his control .

The wall of trees stood over ten meters tall, and they were lush with foliage . Regular zombies struggled to scale past it; only the more nimble Iron Plate corpses could . However, once the Iron Plate corpses made it over, they would be separated from the majority . It would take an extremely great toll on a tenth layer Qi Practitioner to kill all of these Iron Plate corpses, but it was not difficult .

What Xiong Baitan feared the most was becoming the target of a sneak attack once this happened . He treated these Iron Plate corpses as his bodyguards . Regular zombies were unable to keep the enemy locked in battle, so once he scattered some more seeds, his life really might be in danger .

Although they could detour around the wall of trees, water paddies surrounded the village . Following the endless autumn rain, they were basically no different from swamps . The movements of zombies would definitely be restricted if they entered the paddies .

"Hmph, do you think I've fallen for your plan? It's just a bunch of wood . Since we can't push it over, then we'll carve our way through!"

Xiong Batian swung the bell, and the zombies parted to form a path . Xiong Batian personally led several dozen Iron Plate corpses to the wall, and the ringing of the bell suddenly sped up . The Iron Plate corpses at the front swung their claws around furiously .

The tough wood was ripped apart like mud . In the blink of an eye, a huge hole appeared before rapidly extending inwards . Before long, they had carved out a passageway through the wall of trees .

As soon as the first Iron Plate corpse emerged on the other side, a huge mouth riddled with teeth swallowed it in a single gulp . The huge mouth was actually a gorgeous, deep-purple flower, and the stalk connected to the flower squirmed like a snake . The stalk was connected to an even-thicker branch .

There were a total of nine stalks like that, and every stalk had a total of nine flowers at their tips . It was like the legendary hydra, so it was known as the "Hydra Flower" . The buds hunted like pythons, biting down on an Iron Plate corpse each .

The Iron Plate corpses put up a fierce struggle as the soft stalks coiled over like snakes, immobilising them completely while secreting powerful, acidic digestive juices . Even the refined Iron Plate corpses stood no chance as the acid rapidly ate away at them .

The Hydra Flowers blocked a total of eight tunnels through the wall . Coupled with Li Long, he was truly holding them off alone .

Xiong Batian felt a tinge of regret . He should have taken a detour instead . However, with a thought, he came up with an idea . He ordered all the zombies to retreat back into the tunnels . Then, he ordered the Iron Plate corpses to dig to the two sides, avoiding these obstructing plants .

No matter how powerful these plants were, they still could not move freely . Li Long would be forced to replant them if he wanted to continue defending .

"Let's see how many more seeds you have!" Xiong Batian sneered .

The seeds of offensive plants in Li Long's possession were truly close to running out . And, while planting these seeds did not take too much of a toll, the effects built up, and the true qi in his dantian was close to running over . He was holding a spiritual stone in his hand to recover .

However, there was instead a sense of relief and ease on his face . A talisman flew out of his hand . It was only a regular Scorching Fire talisman . If he were lucky, he could kill an Iron Plate corpse at most . The Scorching Flame talisman erupted into a ball of fire in the air, but it did not fly towards any zombie at all . Instead, it flew towards the neat row of trees .

Boom!

The flames spread rapidly . The trees all blazed violently like torches . In particular, the fruits on the branches would immediately explode into a ball of fire as long as a tongue of flame gently licked them .

To disciples of the school of Agriculture, there were only two types of plants that possessed any value . One was offensive plants, but that only occupied a very small fraction of them . Most of them were plants with practical usages, like fruits, vegetables, grain, and medicines .

Among these trees, most of them were tung oil trees the school of Agriculture specially bred . Even their branches contained oil . Once they were set alit, even a storm could not put them out .

A while later, the wall of trees turned into a wall of flames, turning the sky fire-red .

Xiong Batian led the Iron Plate corpses to carve out a tunnel through the trees . The zombie army tailed right behind him, basically all arriving below the wall of trees, only to suddenly discover that the surroundings had already turned into a sea of fire!

Basically every single corpse had been splattered with a lot of sap . Their withered bodies were rapidly ignited . Even for the Iron Plate corpses that were impervious to regular weapons, their iron plates began to distort and change shape under the flames .

Xiong Baitan's face changed drastically . He emitted true qi from his body to fend off the flames . He could no longer care about the regular zombies anymore . Leading the Iron Plate corpses, he turned around and rushed out of the sea of fire, only to see a figure descend from above and land on the edge of the fire .

Li Long stood on the firm ground with his feet bare . The firelight reflected in his eyes, making them shine . He gripped a hoe firmly with his crude hands . He scattered the last few seeds before him, which burst through the earth, grew, and danced around one by one, fighting alongside him .

Large swathes of smoke rose into the sky . After momentarily clearing up, the sky was blotted out once again when the dark clouds gathered over, blocking the moonlight . The autumn drizzle fell slowly .

On the boundary between rain and fire, the plants filled with vigour and the zombies reeking with an aura of death became locked in a fierce struggle .

Li Long's eyes were fixed on Xiong Baitian the entire time . He raised his hoe high into the air before swinging down viciously .

By the time the flames had burnt everything to ashes, the sun had already risen . The drizzle fell onto the grey charcoal; with a hiss, a curl of misty, dusty smoke rose into the air .

Within the smoke and mist, Li Long lay on the scorching ground, gasping for air . He still gripped his hoe firmly as he gazed at the gloomy sky .

He propped himself up and gazed out . The entire Crouching Ox village had already been reduced to ruins . With the wooden wall that had been burned to ashes as a boundary, one side was ruins the zombies had trampled, while the other was charcoal the flames produced .

Although it began to rain afterwards, it was inevitable for the fire to spread .

Li Long could not help but become frustrated . After a night of bitter battle, he had killed his enemy, but he had failed to save the village . He did not have Li Qingshan's resolve . This was the hometown where he had been born and raised after all . Countless familiar people and things had vanished overnight . He felt no joy from victory at all . Instead, his heart weighed heavily .

"Dad! Mum! Dad!"

Sobbing and shouting rang out from behind . Li Long turned around, only to see a child digging furiously through the ruins, but he could not even shift a slightly larger stone . His tears and snot formed a mess on his face .

Li Long's heart eased up for some reason . "What's your name?"

The child looked back . "M- my name is Li Qingshi . Please, immortal, please save my dad and mum!"